This is a really great game with surprisingly good balance. A lot of different builds are viable. If anyone has unlimited time you can check out LethalFrag's no-pause runs on Twitch. He's trying to win with every ship in hard mode without pausing and he knows a lot of tricks.
I've gotten to where I can beat normal more often than not with most ships. General advice:
1. The best way to make scrap in the beginning is not to take damage, so you don't have to spend on hull repairs. You probably want level 2 shields before sector 3, 3 shields before sector 5. The fourth shield has very diminished returns for its cost, and I don't usually get it in favor of other upgrades.
2. It's usually better to hold a bankroll of scrap scrap when you can get away with it in case you run into a store with something awesome.
3. The really expensive weapons have problems. I think the best weapon in the game might be the Burst Laser 2, 3 shots in 12 seconds for 2 power. (I had 3 of them and a Burst Laser 1 in one run, it was the easiest one ever for me.) Compare 2 of those to the Burst Laser 3 at 5 shots in 20 seconds, and the two smaller weapons are far superior. Also big weapons are more vulnerable to being damaged and ion weapons.
4. When you're going through the game the main problem to solve is how to get through high shields effectively. There are different ways to get through, like bursting with lasers, or sustained ion fire, or bombs. Missiles can be good but you need a plan for defense drones. Lots of weapons (like all the beams) are tempting but not useful until you have shield penetration totally taken care of.
5. When you have what you need for all the normal ships, by Sector 4 or so you need to be thinking about how you will handle each phase of the boss. Lots of builds are viable to focus on but anything too one-dimensional will run into a weak point.
6. There is a lot of micro to do and little tricks that aren't obvious. E.g. you can power up a defense drone only when a missile is fired, then after it shoots the missile you can transfer power into evasion. Or you can de-power oxygen to temporarily power something else for a key moment, and try not to die because you forget to turn it back on.
The problem spots you need to address with the boss:
1st form: The hacking can be a big problem. If it hits weapons you might just need to jump away and try again. You can get lucky with a defense drone up since it can shoot down all the hacking attempts sometimes. (Defense drone is one of the best items in the game imo.) You can hack its hacking with your own, or you can try to keep it down with a bomb or missile weapon. Or just hope it hits something not that essential like doors or sensors.
2nd form: You need to have an answer to the mega drone burst. Cloaking works and if you don't have that you need really high evasion and maybe to bring other weapons down. The boarding drone can give problems.
3rd form: The mind control is a big issue now. The best counter is probably your own mind control to use to take your guy back. It also boards you like crazy at the same time. A few good fighters helps a lot.
Also 3rd form: The Zoltan shield is a pain to get through from some builds, and you also have to survive the mega-blast similar to the drones in phase 2.
All forms: The triple missile launcher second from the right is a big threat. It's actually really easy to take down the individual weapons with boarding. So it's often worth picking up a crew teleporter as a supplement even if boarding isn't your main strategy. And amazingly it's possible to take down all 3 boss battles almost entirely with boarding, but you need to leave one guy in one weapon alive or else the ship will go to AI control and self-repair. I did this today and the fights took like 15 minutes. I hacked doors and took out one crew at a time until nobody was left but 1 weapon man. Then those crew stay dead across all forms! And you get on board the main ship, take out the shields all weapons but one, and it can't repair so you can take it out with a basic laser or something.
The cool thing about the game is that a lot of things seem impossible to deal with at first but if you think it through many different builds have ways to deal with it.
I've gotten to where I can beat normal more often than not with most ships. General advice:
1. The best way to make scrap in the beginning is not to take damage, so you don't have to spend on hull repairs. You probably want level 2 shields before sector 3, 3 shields before sector 5. The fourth shield has very diminished returns for its cost, and I don't usually get it in favor of other upgrades.
2. It's usually better to hold a bankroll of scrap scrap when you can get away with it in case you run into a store with something awesome.
3. The really expensive weapons have problems. I think the best weapon in the game might be the Burst Laser 2, 3 shots in 12 seconds for 2 power. (I had 3 of them and a Burst Laser 1 in one run, it was the easiest one ever for me.) Compare 2 of those to the Burst Laser 3 at 5 shots in 20 seconds, and the two smaller weapons are far superior. Also big weapons are more vulnerable to being damaged and ion weapons.
4. When you're going through the game the main problem to solve is how to get through high shields effectively. There are different ways to get through, like bursting with lasers, or sustained ion fire, or bombs. Missiles can be good but you need a plan for defense drones. Lots of weapons (like all the beams) are tempting but not useful until you have shield penetration totally taken care of.
5. When you have what you need for all the normal ships, by Sector 4 or so you need to be thinking about how you will handle each phase of the boss. Lots of builds are viable to focus on but anything too one-dimensional will run into a weak point.
6. There is a lot of micro to do and little tricks that aren't obvious. E.g. you can power up a defense drone only when a missile is fired, then after it shoots the missile you can transfer power into evasion. Or you can de-power oxygen to temporarily power something else for a key moment, and try not to die because you forget to turn it back on.
The problem spots you need to address with the boss:
1st form: The hacking can be a big problem. If it hits weapons you might just need to jump away and try again. You can get lucky with a defense drone up since it can shoot down all the hacking attempts sometimes. (Defense drone is one of the best items in the game imo.) You can hack its hacking with your own, or you can try to keep it down with a bomb or missile weapon. Or just hope it hits something not that essential like doors or sensors.
2nd form: You need to have an answer to the mega drone burst. Cloaking works and if you don't have that you need really high evasion and maybe to bring other weapons down. The boarding drone can give problems.
3rd form: The mind control is a big issue now. The best counter is probably your own mind control to use to take your guy back. It also boards you like crazy at the same time. A few good fighters helps a lot.
Also 3rd form: The Zoltan shield is a pain to get through from some builds, and you also have to survive the mega-blast similar to the drones in phase 2.
All forms: The triple missile launcher second from the right is a big threat. It's actually really easy to take down the individual weapons with boarding. So it's often worth picking up a crew teleporter as a supplement even if boarding isn't your main strategy. And amazingly it's possible to take down all 3 boss battles almost entirely with boarding, but you need to leave one guy in one weapon alive or else the ship will go to AI control and self-repair. I did this today and the fights took like 15 minutes. I hacked doors and took out one crew at a time until nobody was left but 1 weapon man. Then those crew stay dead across all forms! And you get on board the main ship, take out the shields all weapons but one, and it can't repair so you can take it out with a basic laser or something.
The cool thing about the game is that a lot of things seem impossible to deal with at first but if you think it through many different builds have ways to deal with it.